Spoilers ahead…
The opening scene of Vijay’s Idhu Enna Maayam reminded me of the younger Kamal Haasan character’s quip to his girlfriend in Indian. He says they should go to a theatre playing Schindler’s List – it’s a very good film, so there’ll be no one in the audience and they can do what they want. Here, it’s an English play – and by the looks of it, not a very good one. There are two people in the audience. Realising there’s no money in theatre, the members of the group (led by Vikram Prabhu, who plays Arun) decide to use their acting and producing skills and stage elaborate scenarios to help love-struck guys get the girls they want. It’s Cupid as a consortium. It’s also creepy as hell.
What Arun & Co. are doing is essentially making girls fall for guys they aren’t interested in, and knowing there’ll be pesky viewers like me bringing this up, Arun offers this explanation: he only helps guys whose love is true. Oh please. What about the girl? Shouldn’t her love be true too? If she says she’s not interested, should the guy be allowed to pursue her till she relents? Arun & Co. treat romance like a tailor would treat a pair of ill-fitting pants. Take in the waist. Lose a couple of inches at the hem. Keep working at it till it fits. It’s a conceit right out of sci-fi, and we did see something similar in The Truman Show, where simulated reality was used to manipulate human lives. Only, the “hero” of this film, Arun, is playing the “villain” of that one, the Ed Harris character. He’s playing God.
How do you cram these disturbing ethical and philosophical dimensions into something that wants to be just a date flick with at least one song shredded to its constituent consonants by Udit Narayan? You cannot. As a result, Idhu Enna Maayam is just a fascinating mess – fascinating for what it could have been, a mess for what it actually is. For a film with such a novel premise, it’s confounding how many clichés it resorts to. There’s the one during a college flashback where the hero saves the day during a hockey match. There’s the one where hero and heroine (Maya, played by Keerthy Suresh, who looks quite like her mother, the actress Menaka) are in love but pretend to be carrying messages for other people in love with them. The leads just don’t click. Vikram Prabhu is miscast. He’s stiff and inward – he’s no romantic leading man. The part needs looseness, glint-in-the-eye charisma, but his face is an inscrutable mask. Keerthy Suresh is… cute. I hesitate to use that word because of how Humbert Humbertish it makes me sound, but she does have that anointed-with-morning-dew quality that makes you see why Mani Ratnam is (reportedly) considering her for his new movie. But she keeps hitting the same note, speaking all her lines as though she were a mortally wounded doe.
Some of the comedy works. There are times the setups go wrong, and Charlie has a high old time as an actor who thinks it’s a real shooting spot – he keeps looking for the cinematographer. But there’s very little of this in a very long movie. (At least, it feels very long.) Nasser is wasted in the role of Arun’s father who’s in the screenplay simply so that he can give his son sorrowful looks and say things like “naan panna thappa nee pannaadhe.” But if anyone deserves an easy pay cheque, it’s him. A few weeks back, while talking about Yagavarayinum Naa Kaakka, I’d written about a possible Mani Ratnam effect on today’s filmmakers. Here, we see re-enactments of the “Mr. Chandramouli” scene from Mouna Raagam, and the Amala-slinking-into-Prabhu’s-house scene from Agni Natchatiram. I think it’s talismanic. These directors must be hoping some of that magic will rub off. They hope and hope, and then they hope some more.
KEY:
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Baradwaj Rangan 
Aravind Ramachandran
August 3, 2015
“one song shredded to its constituent consonants by Udit Narayan”
… Finally. I have been telling whoever cares to listen (grand total of maybe 1 and a quarter souls, including my dog) the same thing. How in the world does anyone think he should be singing unless they are tone deaf?
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gvsafamily
August 3, 2015
Aravind Ramachandran
I think ARR is to blame. If I remember right ‘kuluvalile’ was his first song in Tamil. 20 years and UN hasn’t learned a thing about Tamil pronunciations.
On a tangential note, is ‘kadichu thupp’ing a reasonable Tamil equivalent to BR’s eloquent phrase – “shredded to its constituent consonants”?
🙂
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Madhu
August 3, 2015
I always contrast Udit Narayan with Shreya Ghoshal and wonder how on earth can she sound so native when she sings Tamil songs. Yuvan didn’t take enough effort for ‘Ninaithu ninaithu’ in 7G, otherwise I am sure she would have had her pronunciations right there. Just think of her in ‘Unna Vida’ and ‘Kalvarey’. Even ‘kalvarey’ is Sentamizh, but that folksy sound of ‘unna vida’, she is pure awesome. And Udit Narayan by contrast, doesn’t own a single song in which the words sound like Tamil, let alone native. I have heard from my Kannadiga friends that Ghoshal sounds native in Kannada as well.
gvsafmily: kadichu thupping, kadichu kodarifying, kuthi kizhichufying are all acceptable equivalent phrases 😀
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MANK
August 3, 2015
Keerthi was terrible in her Malayalam debut geethanjali. Well perhaps one could excuse her for that. It was the usual priyadarshan disaster. May be she will have better luck with manirathnam
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MANK
August 3, 2015
Shreya ghoshal is nothing short of a miracle as far as a appropriating different languages and vernacular accents. The beauty with which she sings Malayalam songs are astonishing. You cannot say she is not a malayali. Other wise non malayalis find it impossible to sing Malayalam songs without an accent. Even SPB or susheela couldn’t do it. Oh and udit narayan pops in repeatedly to murder the language in Malayalam also . Tamil has it much more easier.I could never understand a word of any song he has sung in Malayalam
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KayKay
August 3, 2015
To be fair, while his vocals leered lasciviously over Sahana in Shivaji, Udit largely left that divine number unmolested. Or perhaps it was because Chinmayi kept a stern watch over that tune’s chastity?
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apala
August 3, 2015
BR-sir,
“Idhu Enna Maayam is just a fascinating mess – fascinating for what it could have been, a mess for what it actually is”.
நெத்தியடி வாத்தியாரே!!!
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ThouShaltNot
August 3, 2015
Lucky for Udit, murdering a language is not a crime, otherwise he would be doing time in more than one southern state 🙂
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Ravi K
August 4, 2015
I think “Kadhalikkum Pennin” from “Kaadhalan” was his first song in Tamil. He was perfect for that song, and absolutely dreadful in everything else he sang in Tamil. I thought his reign of terror in Tamil film music was over (these days I only keep track of ARR, Santhosh Narayanan, and a few random albums here and there), but that doesn’t appear to be true.
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praneshp
August 4, 2015
Not sure if is true, but listen to 7:00-8:30 of this video for a nice anectode.
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Neena
August 4, 2015
Seconding all the comments about Udit N. I can understand if his voice is a unique fit for the song – like Kadhalikkum Pennin Kaigal. Otherwise, I guess it’s got something to do with how sometimes people croone over a North Indian or a Non-Indian trying to speak their language, “so cute!”. It happens all the time with Sadhana Sargam too 😦
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Anuja Chandramouli
August 4, 2015
“…one song shredded to its constituent consonants by Udit Narayan?”
Wow what a line Sirji! There is something about that guy’s singing esp. in Tamil, that makes me want to pull out my ears before they bleed to death, choosing suicide over brutal aural violation.
As for the premise of Idhu Enna Maayam, it reminded me of Hitch, where Will Smith played this corny ‘date doctor’ and justified his ‘vocation’ by saying that he only helps those whose love is true. Once of the characters refers to him as a ‘f**k doctor’.
Thanks to all the ‘realistic’ film makers out there, I knew that HFDCs love their carbs but thanks to Suraaj, I have had my eyes opened to the dietary preferences of City Dogs (CDs) as well 🙂
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Ram Murali
August 5, 2015
My favorite (!) Udit rendition in Tamil has to be “EeshwarA” from “Kannethire Thondrinaal!” He butchered that royally. The lyrics were quite amusing but his singing ensured that you could hardly follow! In one interview Vairamuthu recollected how he had written the line, “Piriyamaana Pennai Rasikalaam” and Udit – in an early version of the rendition – sang, “Periya Maapillai Rasikalaam” or something to that effect!
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Ravi K
August 5, 2015
North Indian have occasionally sung in South Indian languages, going all the way back to KL Saigal, But they seem to have put more effort into their pronunciations than some of the current North Indian singers, even if they didn’t sound completely native.
(dubbed version of Uran Khatola)
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Sai
August 5, 2015
Any south indian singer (bred in Tamil Nadu so excluding Chinmayee) specifically Tamil who has done well in Hindi with pronounciation? I think Karthik has done well to an extent. Can someone let me know few more names?
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Santosh Kumar T K
August 6, 2015
Sai,
T Rajendar, bred in Tamil Nadu, sings Oriya songs very well.
BR: More than Udit Narayan the one who gets my goat is a “sweet-sounding” Sadhna Sargam who butchers all grammatical integrity of the song. exhibit 1: “penne” in “vennilave vennilave” (I think it is a curse of the modern age recording where tracks are recorded individually. This wouldn’t have happened several years ago if they were to sing and record in tandem with, say, a Hariharan (only Tamizh, not Telugu!) or an SPB?
Even SPB (the holier than thou Telugu pandit) gets away with the minute but glaring (for his stature) errors in Telugu!
The one who has consistently blown my mind (right from the ’80s) is Chitra. For a non-native singer to get the variants of “cha” and “sa” in her Telugu songs right is mind boggling!
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sachita
August 6, 2015
Sonu Nigam sings with almost perfect pronounciation in Tamil. I figured this was the reason he has been made to sing very few songs here. Think people go, a north indian singer sounding like a tamilian, whats the point.
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Ravi K
August 6, 2015
Sai:
Yesudas
Vijay Prakash (Kannadiga, I believe)
Vani Jairam
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sridharraman
August 7, 2015
Probably in the minority here, but I, for one, have never had a problem with singers’ pronunciations. If the song sounds good musically and tonally, I could care less about a big/small “na”, etc. I do understand that this could be a problem for people following the lyrics intently. But, since I’ve always listened to songs in many languages whose lyrics I barely understand, this becomes a non-issue for me.
I’ve heard similar criticism for non mono-language lyrical songs. It never made too much sense to me. How does the quality of a Tamil song diminish just because it has English words in it? As long as it sounds rhythmically correct and sticks to the tune seamlessly, not too much of a problem.
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Santosh Kumar T K
August 7, 2015
@sridharraman
…How does the quality of a Tamil song diminish just because it has English words in it?…
if words such as “passport,” “oxygen,” “50kg,” “armstrong” “miss world,” appear in serious romantic ballads (serious as evident in the singer’s/actor’s expressions, body language) there is a tonal break, the break in the mood is jarring.
Tamizh >> Telugu > ……………… Hindi are guilty in that order.
if they appeared in a “fun” song like “Columbus Columbus” (Jeans), then all’s well!
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Sowmya
August 9, 2015
The plot by itself is not original.. Lifted from a Korean movie called Cyrano Dating Agency, which was actually more enjoyable than this mess.
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sridharraman
August 11, 2015
@SantoshKumar, the tonal break could happen due to a non-English word as well. Or, there can be English (or for that matter, non-original-language words which fit fine). E.g. the Shuddh Desi Romance song “Chanchal Mann” has its first line end with the word “random”. It sounds perfectly fine. Or, “Snegidhane” in Alaipayuthey uses “olive yennai” without feeling out of place.
I remember reading interviews by Tamil lyricists claiming that they would never ever use English words in their songs. It’s their pov, but it didn’t feel like a matter of pride to me. That’s all.
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anttales
October 3, 2015
Udit Narayanan’s singing just grates on my nerves. The absolute worst was Soniya Soniya from Ratchagan in which he sings alongside Unnikrishnan. It was an aural roller coaster. Even Sukhwinder Singh sounds much better compared to UN. I don’t understand why the music directors would prefer a non Tamil singer as if there is a dearth of good Tamil speaking singers.
And when are Tamil movie makers going to realise that when a girl says no, she means it? I think VTV is the only movie in which eventually the heroine says no and the hero accepts it.
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